Review: Plum Organics baby food, adult food, and website ordering

Friends and family members are making their own baby food, and talk about how easy and cost-effective it is. I believe them. But I'm tired. So I buy baby food. I reason that the boy won't be eating baby food for long (two teeth down, two more to go before he can get his chew on), and we don't have much room in the freezer to store what I'd make (I know, I know... it's not big). Also, we don't have anything appropriate for making baby food. I've tried with the food processor, but I'd have to make like 50 servings of carrots for it to work, and I'm afraid of freezer burn or the baby hating carrots after consuming that many.

Sounding defensive, huh? Well how about this: I love some of the choices that are out there. For Mal's "at home" food, I tend to stick with the Gerber food in plastic little tubs because it works out to about $.50 per tub, and that will typically last him 1.3 meals (he doesn't usually eat a whole one at breakfast, but will at dinner)... plus, some of the mixtures are awesome. Today, he had pear, zucchini, and corn. I like introducing him to a wide variety of flavors.

When we're out and about, it's easier to use pouches. They're more pricey, but I don't have to take a spoon. On vacation, we learned that the downside of eating out of a pouch for a week is that he gets super impatient with a spoon, since we have to "reload." He prefers to suck his food down all at once, even if that means backing up some of it on his face and chest, and being finished in 3 minutes.

Thus, we reserve pouches for visiting friends and eating in restaurants. My favorites are Plum Organics. I also like their "puffs" and teething biscuits (which, for "no mess" products are ridiculously difficult to clean up), and so does the boy.

I signed up for their email club to get coupons, and got a buy-one/get-one free which I used immediately. Then they sent me a coupon code for some money off of a new product they just released: pureed mixes for adults!

When I was expecting my teenager, I ate baby food because I wanted unsweetened apple sauce, but back in 2001, they didn't have apple sauce mixed with other fruits... except in baby food. Now, here are these things! I ordered two of everything they had, because I loved the idea.

Today, I tried the pear, kale, spinach, celery mix, and it was extremely refreshing. It has only 70 calories, and did a good job tiding me over between breakfast and the late (2:00 PM) lunch we were having with friends. I wasn't hungry until we got there, and I wasn't so full that I couldn't eat. I'm really excited to try the pineapple, carrot, mint but may keep that for last. Tomorrow, we'll move on to the cherry, berry, beet, and ginger.

While I was at the site, I ordered a few things for the boy child. Several of them, he has had before. Others, we're treading on new territory here.

He has eaten the sweet potato, mango, and millet, and really liked it. Also, for you cloth-diaper moms: so far, the food we've given him that has any kind of grain mixed in has resulted in well-formed (read: easily dumped) BumGenius filling. I appreciate that.

Today, Mal tried the pumpin, dates, oats, and chia. He loved it, judging by how quickly he sucked it down. I tried it, too; I try everything he eats, because if it's icky, I don't want to force it on him. It was a little sweeter than most of the veggie mixes he's had so far, and the chia is indiscernible, texture-wise. It actually reminded me a lot of pumpkin pie. Very nice.

Also, to try to remedy the rapid consummation of the food, I purchased these:

You screw it onto the top of the pouch, so you can spoon feed the food instead of having the baby slorp it all up. Well, that's the theory, anyway. In practice, the food squeezes out at the back of the spoon, and if you try to fill it up so it will push forward, the spoon wants instead to overflow at the back part of the spoon. When I feed Mal his regular food, I only put it on about 1/3 to 1/2 of the front of the spoon; otherwise, he makes a royal mess. We tried this for about three bites before it was more out of control than just letting him cram the plastic straw into his maw and go for it that way. Disappointing.

We haven't tired either of these yet, but Mal has liked the Chobani Greek yogurt with mango and spinach, so I have high hopes.

The thing about which I am most excited, though (apart from my own pouches of delicious mixes), is this:

It's their World Baby mixes, and I am super excited about exposing Mal to flavors he might not otherwise get until he can eat "real" food with us. If I were making his food at home, we could possibly end up with the Mexican and Italian varieties, but I doubt he'd ever eat lentils and roasted squash with apricots as a puree around here.

Looking around the website at Plum Organics, they have some neat kids' stuff, too. Next time I order, I want to try the Jammy Sammy (maybe all 4 varieties!) and the Go Bar because I know I'd like them, but I'm pretty sure my teenager would, too.

I received my order in just under a week, and shipping was a reasonable $7.99 for everything that I ordered. It's an indulgence, to be sure, and I won't be doing it every week, but maybe monthly we can find it in our food budget to get restock on the Plum Organics!

Also, if you join Club Plum, you get $10 off and free shipping on an order! Score! Now I'll try to be patient until we consume all of this stuff before ordering again...